I hadn’t intended to write a review of Inside Out. It was
a Father’s Day outing and I’d like to think there are some movies I don’t have
to write about, but since this will probably show up on my top five for 2015, I
thought I’d better post something to refer to later.

I feel like I have a personal and familial relationship
with Pixar Animation. The first film my sons saw in a theater was A Bug’s Life
(1998) and Pixar films had been must-sees for us from then on until Cars
(2006). While John Lassiter’s pet project may have been a merchandising
juggernaut, it was the first clunker for us. The studio that had seemed to be
innovative and cutting edge fell back into the same routine as the big guys.
They’d already made a sequel, Toy Story 2 (1999), but they made it a trilogy
(2010). And they made Cars 2 (2011). Disney Animation, by then under Lassiter’s
direction, even cranked out a Pixar-clone, Planes (2013). I have to imagine it’s
only Thomas the Tank Engine that stands between us and Trains.

Definitely, it felt like the bloom was off the rose by
the time Brave (2012) was released. While the studio is already in
regurgitation-mode with a Finding Nemo sequel, Finding Dory, Toy Story 4, The
Incredibles 2 and sorry to say a Cars 3 in production, they still can hit
magic, something the studio has been missing the mark on since Up (2009). Sequels only make us nostalgic for
experiencing the original, that sense that we’ve discovered something new and
had a shared experience not only with the people we’re with, but the people in
the theater and every theater showing the movie across the world. Sequels, try
as they might to re-create that experience, usually fail to deliver something as
wonderful the second, third and fourth time around. The production values might
be better in subsequent sequels, but there is nothing like the first time you
saw Toy Story.

Inside Out shows that there is still some magic left at
Pixar. Maybe some of Tinker Bell’s pixie dust from parent Disney has cross
pollinated its Emeryville subsidiary, but Inside Out is one of the most
original concepts to come along in quite a while.

The film offers a look at what goes on inside a person’s
brain and how memories and emotions determine who we are, allow us to make
friends and have interests. Pixar selected five emotions: Joy (Amy Poehler);
Sadness (Phyllis Smith); Fear (Bill Hader), Anger (Lewis Black) and Disgust
(Mindy Kaling), which are enough to carry the day and tell the story. All of these reside in the brain or control
center inside Riley Anderson (Kaitlyn
Dias), a preteen who, along with her mother (Diane Lane) and father (Kyle MacLachlan), has moved from Minnesota to San Francisco.

Starting over is always difficult and it plays havoc with her
emotions and consequently her core memories which are the building blocks of who
Riley is. When everything is falling apart, Joy and Sadness have to work
together to save Riley from making the biggest mistake in her life.

The voice acting is a little bit like a crossover episode of
Parks and Recreation (Poehler) and The American Office (Smith and Kaling), two
shows that were never quite as funny as they could have/should have been in my
opinion. (Not that I don’t think Poehler is a very talented comedian.) Throw
in Poehler’s fellow SNL alum Hader, who has made a second career doing voice
work (Cloudy with A Chance of Meatballs 1 & 2) and stand up turned
actor/commentator Black and you’ve got a very strong ensemble. Black brings his
stand up anger shtick with him the same way Don Rickles brought his insult
routine to Mr. Potato Head in the Toy Story franchise.

Like the emotions on screen, I found myself going through the
range, from laughing out loud to literally crying before the film was over. Up
was the last time Pixar had made me cry at one of their movies. Inside Out
shows that Pixar can still be a studio with original ideas that can succeed
with audiences all around the world. But no doubt if this is as big of a
success as it appears we’ll be looking at Inside Out 2: Riley’s Teen Years in
2022 a year after Pixar and Disney reap the merchandise bonanza of Cars 3. (That is why they’re making it, right?)